Abstract
Riparian vegetation varies along hydrologic gradients, along which inundation and drought tend to be inversely correlated. Differentiating effects of inundation and drought on plant distributions is critical for predicting impacts of changes to baseflows and designing flow patterns to achieve vegetation objectives in regulated river systems. To this end, we conducted a greenhouse experiment where we decreased, increased, or maintained constant water levels experienced by a suite of riparian plant species. We related changes in new root growth and stomatal conductance under experimental conditions to species hydrologic niches in the field, specifically the median elevation at which they occur above the channel, along the regulated Colorado River in Grand Canyon. We found a significant negative relationship between root growth response to experimental inundation with increasing elevation above the channel in the field, and a negative response of stomatal conductance to inundation among the most xeric-adapted species. Drought responses were idiosyncratic with respect to hydrologic niche, and instead seemed to vary in relation to clonality and rooting depth. Several Salicaceae tree species that are uncommon along regulated rivers exhibited consistently negative responses to both drought and inundation relative to other species, which may explain their rarity. The results of this study suggest that riparian plant distributions along hydrologic gradients have been shaped primarily by current and past levels of inundation. However, future anticipated declines in the water table are likely to produce species-specific responses based on drought tolerance that may in part be predicted from the results of this experiment.
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Data will be available online via a USGS data release following publication of this manuscript.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Samuel Chischilly, Megan Phillips, Rikki Gurule and Erica Fraley for helping to establish this experiment and collect data. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
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This work was supported by the Glen Canyon Adaptive Management Program via USGS cooperative agreement #G17AC00220 to Northern Arizona University.
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Brad Butterfield and Emily Palmquist both contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Brad Butterfield. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Brad Butterfield and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Butterfield, B.J., Palmquist, E.C. Inundation Tolerance, Rather than Drought Tolerance, Predicts Riparian Plant Distributions Along a Local Hydrologic Gradient. Wetlands 44, 6 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-023-01730-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-023-01730-2